The residents of the northern Alaskan village of Shishmaref are currently voting to decide whether or not to relocate their village. As global warming brings up temperatures, the sea ice that once protected the village has begun to melt. Now the town, which is built on a barrier island in the... View full entry »

Today the highway serves as the main artery connecting the “Last Frontier” with Canada and the northwestern U.S., bringing tourists to Alaska cruise ships; food, supplies and medicine to remote towns; and equipment to oil fields and mines that are the region’s lifeblood...

“Communities are unable to reach each other, it’s harder to get goods there,” [...] Thawing permafrost isn’t “just an inconvenience, folks; it’s a change in the way of life.”
— Bloomberg

More on Archinect:Global warming is redrawing national bordersRussia considering plans for a 12,400-mile superhighway linking London and AlaskaObama changes the name of tallest mountain from Mt McKinley to DenaliWhy American infrastructure funding keeps facing such an uphill battle View full entry »

As the story goes, the original owner of this unwieldy building located in Willow, Alaska built his house shortly after a forest fire with a clear view of Mount McKinley and Denali National Park. As the surrounding trees recovered, the pristine view was obscured and the owner decided to add few more stories, eventually spending a decade adding floors until it reached the 12-ish story tower you see today. Not surprisingly, locals refer to the building as the “Dr. Seuss House” [...].
— thisiscolossal.com

Related stories on Archinect:Obama changes the name of tallest mountain from Mt McKinley to DenaliRussia considering plans for a 12,400-mile superhighway linking London and AlaskaThe Alaskan village set to disappear under water in a decade View full entry »

The Obama administration will change the name of North America's tallest mountain peak from Mount McKinley to Denali, the White House said Sunday, a major symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the eve of President Barack Obama's historic visit to Alaska.

By renaming the peak Denali, an Athabascan word meaning "the high one," Obama waded into a sensitive and decades-old conflict between residents of Alaska and Ohio.
— AP

"Alaskans have informally called the mountain Denali for years, but the federal government recognizes its name invoking the 25th president, William McKinley, who was born in Ohio and assassinated early in his second term." View full entry »

The Trans-Eurasian Belt Development would see the construction of a vast motorway across Russia. It would connect with existing networks in Europe, making road trips to eastern Russia a far easier proposition. While roads do currently run across most of Russia, the quality tends to deteriorate the farther you travel from Moscow. [...]

A new high-speed train line would also be constructed, along with pipelines for gas and oil.
— Business Insider

Almost no one in America has heard of the Alaskan village of Kivalina. It clings to a narrow spit of sand on the edge of the Bering Sea, far too small to feature on maps of Alaska, never mind the United States.

Which is perhaps just as well, because within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered - if at all - as the birthplace of America's first climate change refugees.
— bbc.co.uk